Wichita eagle., 1887-11-30
RAMBLES ABOUT EUROPE.
From England to Egypt and the Holy
Land Especially for the Eagle
NO. XXXIv.
CAIRO, Egypt, Nov. 2, 1881.

orr arrival in one of the swift little
steamers that attend to the local traffic
| on the Suez canal. we reached Isnalia
| little before noon, where we were TO
take the train for this city. The canal
| for quite a distance skirts Lake Men
| zaIch-a shallow body of water extend
| ing to the Nile, and believed to have
| covered one day the site OF several an
Gent cities. Then it cuts a passage
! through the sand hills Of the desert until
it strikes the Balah lakes, emerging from
which it leads on through the desert to
Lake Timsah, on the northwest shore of
which is located the once thriving city
of Is1nalia, whose decline was occasioned
a few years ago by fever epidemic, the
result of defective sewerage. AS a win
ter resort for invalids up to that period
it was supposed to have no equal. The
canal runs through the lake, then cuts.
into the sand mills again until it reaches
Old Bitter Lake, which it traverses
throughout its entire length, then
makes final cut through
the sand to its termination
in the Gulf Of Suez. Its en-
tire length is about 100 miles. In width
it varies from 1915 feet to $50 feet to the
/ top, but with an actual width Of channel
at the bottom Of only seventy-two feet,
with an actual depth of twentysix feet.
We passed several large British vessels
returning from India, running quite slow
in comparison to our little cutter. To
avoid the wash Of the waves on the banks
OF the canal. which would be destructive
to them. these large vessels,were permitted
to keep up their usual rate Of speed. A
large force of men and camels are now at
work on this important commercial high
way. widening and deepening the chan
mel in places and building a stone wall to
protect the embankment.
is generally believed that a canal
connected the Mediterranean and the
Red Sea IN ancient times. When Napo-
leon was here he had the route surveyed,
but his engineer reported to him that the
Red Sea was thirty-three feet higher
than the Mediterranean, and he pursued
the matter no further. 1t remained, how
ever, for another Frenchman to prove
the utter fallacy of all previous calcula-
ton of which we have any record, al
though other engineers who had taken
measurements, reported the feasibility OF
constructing ship canal. In 1858 NJ.
de Lesseps undertook the work and
prosecuted it successfully, throwing it
10, : ,a4 of no IN
It is said to have cost ninety-tive millions
of dollars, and the money expended by
the Khedive in festivities when the work
was completed, amounted to a no less
sum than twenty-oHe millions Of dollars
paid out of the private purse of Isniail
Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt, who after
wards paid the penalty of his prodigal-
ity by being forced to sell to the British
b0ndholders his stock in the canal,
amounting to thirty-one millions of dol
lars. for less than one half the amount
it cost him. In one year 1883 the tolls
amounted to over thirteen millions Of
dollars, showing what profitable IN
vestment it has been to foreign share
holders. and accounting in some measure
for the tenacity with which Monsieur
de Lesseps pursues his purposes in the
face of difficulties such as no man has
had to encounter, in the construction of
the Panama canal.
, We took the train about nOOn-a
mixed one, with one first and second
class coach, cattle car, and
two or three open cars
no better than our average
, stock cars. but with a double row of
benches through the center facing each
way for the natives to ride in at a rate
suitable to their means. For a few
t miles out we ran through the hot sandy
q plains of the desert, then struck canal
that conducted the water here all the
way from the Nile, and the balance OF
the way our route led through broad
5 level plains, every acre of which was
cIlltivable, and if not in growing crops
was being inundated, preparatory to the
work Of planting. Some fields were
already dry enough for the plow and il
r would have made a Sedgwick county
, farmer contented with the old John Dert
walking pillow he brought with him from
i Illinois and abandoned years ago for 3
/, sulkv, if he could have seen the farmers
/ or fellahin, as they are here called. dTiv,
ing yoke of humpbacled cattle at
tached by yoke to long wooden bear
with a crook in it roughly shod with {
three pronged iron and fitted
n with handles. This was thC
: plow invented five thousand
years ago and in the land of the Nile
. it has never been superseded
1t is not always necessary to tickle the
5 ground with p!ow to produce luKur
e ant crop Yesterday [ noticed a mum
Der of fellahs in the mire up to then
bare knees showing a block of wood by ;
: long handle back and forth on the yield
e ing surface. Their movements puzzled
f me. and l inquired of the dragoman wha
:. they were doing. His brief but cOnvinc
ing reply was sowing beans" and thi
y method is pursued likewise in sowing
e wheat and barley.
q The chief wealth of Lower Egypt i
in It's agricultural resources. Compar
. ing the cultivable area which is les
o than the state Of Kansas, with the TEEN
n ing population, 600 to the square mile. i
d IS evident that the land must be taxed L
the utmost to support its inhabitants
and at the same time produce corn ans
II cCtren in such vast quantities as Z
:. constitute Egypt the most formidahl,
% rival the United States has in the mark
els of Europe for these products. Mucl
as l have heard of the productiveness o
Il Egypt | was hardly prepared to see TIL
/ vast fields of cotton in which men
: women and children We're at work gath
ering in the crop, nor the inlmens
acreage of corn, and If it was not cOtteI
|: or corn. then it was dura, or sorghum
n as we call II. which Is not raise,
~ for its sacchaFine qualities. but for tn
little TUT that grows at the top of th
stalk containing. when ripe, the seed
! Il i = Il